Last time, deaths.

“Allow me to explain the rules.”

Shuya is thinking of the corpses. Yoshitoki’s blood smells different than the blood from their instructor’s corpse earlier, and Fumiyo doesn’t seem to have bled much.

It’s a good thing the basic rules aren’t much, because he’s in no condition to pay attention.

Sakamochi explains they kill each other, however they want. Think of it as challenging yourself with adversity, kids!

Also, men and women will be treated equally. There will be no handicaps for either side. I do have good news for the girls, though. According to Program statistics, 49% of past winning survivors have been girls. The motto here is, ‘I’m just like the others and the others are like me.’ There is nothing to be afraid of.”

That honestly just suggests the games are usually total chaos and the winner succeeds by chance. But hey, it’s nice to see women being about as good at killing as men.

They bring in some bags and Sakamochi explains these have supplies and a random weapon, because the more randomness the better! Seriously.

It’s at this point that any idea I had that there was a point to this has gone out the window. It’s like a kid doing a science experiment by throwing together every possible variable at once. More variables mean more science!

Are there any of you who don’t have watches? You all do?

No, one of the kids earlier didn’t know what time it was and was asking. Perhaps they’re just not responding.

He then says they’re on an island that’s been evacuated for the games. So I guess they don’t stick to uninhabited ones. Sucks to be an islander.

The island is surrounded by boats to kill any escapees. That seems like overkill, but then the government seems to like overkill.

Here’s where it gets more complicated. The island is divided up according to a grid. Four times a day, one square will be designated forbidden and kids will have a short grace period to get out of it before their collars explode. Hope you’re good with maps.

Their collars also track their location and physical condition. Messing will them also causes them to explode.

And if there are any students left in the zone after the designated time—of course dead students won’t matter—the computer will automatically detect anyone alive and immediately send a signal to his or her collar.

Hm. So there’s an interesting loophole there. The collar only explodes if it thinks you’re still alive – makes sense, as they apparently examine the corpses when the game finishes. If you can trick the collar into thinking you’re dead, it won’t care if you’re in a banned area – which is particularly important because it seems it’d be easy for them to set the ocean as a banned area if you made it there.

Of course, it’ll still be transmitting your location, so moving around will be dangerous. You might be able to get away with it if you get into a river, though.

The motivation for this is to prevent people from just hiding. They’ll have to move to avoid the banned areas and as the banned areas increase, they’ll be pushed together. Stuff like this shows that the Hunger Games didn’t rip off this, because it didn’t even realize this is a problem.

He adds that the school they’re in will be the first forbidden area.

Now, in my announcements I will also read off the names of those who have died in the past six hours. Each announcement will be made regularly at six-hour intervals, but I’ll also be contacting the last remaining survivor by announcement as well. Oh…and one more thing. There is a time limit. Listen up. A time limit. A lot of people die in the Program, but if no one dies within twenty-four hours then your time’s expired, and it won’t matter how many students are left….”

This is interesting. I expect it’s more cinematic, but it removes one element of paranoia. Let’s say you don’t much want to kill people, you just don’t want to die. You might figure you should avoid people and not kill them unless they’re a threat to you. But if you don’t know if anyone’s died in the last twenty-three hours, you won’t know if you need to kill someone to reset that counter. The only way to be sure you’re safe at the moment is to see someone else die, and the easiest way to do that is to kill them yourself.

Of course, listing the deaths has it sown benefit, which is to remind you that other people are playing.

The game Shuya heard back when he was a kid was over in less than four days. I wonder if that’s standard?

Sakamochi then wraps up his speech by reminding them it’s kill or be killed:

Some of you might be thinking that murdering your classmates is impossible. But don’t forget there are others willing to do it.”

And Shuya wants to respond, but he doesn’t dare after seeing Fumiyo killed.

And instead, everyone starts to look at each other.

Whenever anyone’s gaze met, their eyes would nervously turn toward Sakamochi. It only happened within a matter of seconds, but their expressions were exactly the same: they were tense and suspicious, wondering who was already ready to take part.

So it begins! Shuya wants to tell them not to fall for it, but again, he doesn’t dare.

To memorize something, it’s best to write it down. Write this. ‘We will kill each other.’ Write it three times.”
…
Sakamochi continued, “Okay then. ‘If I don’t kill, I will be killed.’ Write this down three times too.”

Yeah, this is really, really creepy.

Shuya also glanced over at Fumiyo Fujiyoshi. Her white fingers poking out of the cuffs of her sailor suit uniform gently formed a bowl. She was the nurse’s aide. She was quiet but very caring.

And he reiterates his desire to murder Sakamochi.

It’s interesting that Fumiyo is still in the story. I mentioned last time that she hadn’t been introduced, but we’re getting a tidbit about her now instead, and it shows Shuya isn’t motivated solely by his close friends.

“Now then, let’s see, every two minutes one of you will be leaving the classroom. Once you go through this door and turn right down the hall you’ll find the school exit. You are to leave immediately. Anyone loitering in the hall will be immediately shot.

Well, seems it’s time for the game to begin.

This book sure takes its time, doesn’t it? Seven actual chapters and a prologue, and we’re only now getting to the weapons and releasing the kids.

Sakamochi explains that the kids will go according to seating order, alternating male and female. This goes back to the numbering of the students. A big deal is made of the fact that they’ll be selecting where the count starts by lottery, only for them to end up picking boy #1 anyway, so I don’t see the point of that.

As luck would have it, Shuya and Noriko are both #15, so he’ll be able to leave with him – if she manages to walk out at all, which he’s not sure of.

Kazou decides to ask a question finally.

Like Shinji Mimura, he also sounded calm. But his voice sounded cold with a harsh ring. “I was wondering when the game begins.”

It starts upon leaving, of course.

So, the first student is Yoshio, and if you’ve been reading the ending list, you’ll know he’s big but clumsy. We’re reminded of this now.

He stood at the open door and faced the darkness. He looked back at everyone with a terrified face, but then a moment later he vanished beyond the door. Two or three footsteps turned into the pounding sound of his running, which then faded away. It sounded like he fell once but then it sounded like he dashed off again.

Not an auspicious beginning.

Not everyone just bolts, though. Sakura drops a note on her boyfriend’s desk on the way out and he manages to grab it before Sakamochi notices.

Shuya finds this encouraging, but he realizes that the fact that they wanted to secretly meet only meant they didn’t trust anyone else and they were certain others would try to kill them. No, Shuya, now you’re thinking too much into it. None of the kids are allowed to talk, so any message has to be a secret from Sakamochi, and she only had one piece of paper anyway. All you know is that when she had a choice of picking one person, she picked her boyfriend.

Shuya assumes it’s some sort of directions to meet. It can’t be precise because they haven’t seen their maps yet, though.

Shuya thought, I have no idea what lies beyond this room but I should at the very least be able to wait outside and talk to the students after me. None of Sakamochi’s rules prohibit me from doing this. Everyone might be panicking from suspicion, but if we can just get together and discuss the situation then I’m sure we can come up with a plan.

I think at a certain point Shuya does seem too nice, although you can read this as having an element of delusion to it – it’s better for him as well if they work together instead of fighting.

Most of Shuya’s surviving friends will come after him, but his old friend Hiroki is higher on the list and Shuya doesn’t think he can safely pass a note. He just hopes Hiroki will have the same idea to stick around.

In front and behind him, the quiet ones, Shogo Kawada, Kazuo Kiriyama, and Mitsuko Souma, left one by one.

Shuya says he’s sure the rest of the class assumes these three will want to play the game, since they’re delinguents and those people will murder you for kicks.

But Shuya doubted Kazuo Kiriyama would. Kazuo had his own gang. On top of that, his gang was a lot tighter than your typical group of buddies. Hiroshi Kuronaga, Ryuhei Sasagawa, Sho Tsukioka, and Mitsuru Numai. The rules of this game turned everyone else into your enemy, but the five of them killing each other was unimaginable.

And indeed, Shuya sees all the others in the gang look unworried, and assumes Kazuo wrote them a note about their escape plan. Shuya informs us that Kazuo could easily outthink their government opponents. Seriously, so awesome.

He goes on to say that Mitsuko is similar. She wasn’t next to her friends, so she couldn’t have told them any plan But…Mitsuko Souma was a girl. There was no way she would play this game.

Shuya, were you not listening when he said half the winners were girls? I mean, sure, he might have been lying, but they publicize the local results so it can’t be too different from that or people would be suspicious.

But Shogo…Shuya admits friendless Shogo doesn’t have those ties, plus he is kind of weird and scarred.

Could it be that…Shogo might be the only one willing to participate in this game? It was certainly possible.
But Shuya knew the moment he turned suspicious he was giving into the government, so he immediately dismissed the thought…though he had trouble dismissing the thought entirely.

So, it’s not entirely that Shuya is a pollyanna, he’s also swimming in denial.

Time passed.
Many of the girls were crying as they left.

The focus on the story is consistently on how miserable and wrong this is. Not everyone responds well – there’s Kyoichi saying his dad’s important, they can’t pick his class if his dad’s important – but everyone is horrified to be here in a way that goes beyond just thinking they won’t win.

Shuya’s name is finally called after an hour. He tries to walk toward Noriko. Sakamochi tells him not to.

“Yoshitoki Kuninobu was my friend. The least I could do is close his eyes. According to the Great Dictator’s education policy, we’re supposed to respect the dead.”

So he’s allowed to do that much.

Now that he was up close he saw, courtesy of the frivolous one, thin, red flesh and something white in Yoshitoki’s blood-stained short hair. He realized it was bone. Thanks to the bullets wedged inside his head, Yoshitoki’s big eyes bulged out even further. He looked stupefied with the upturned eyes of a starving refugee waiting to be fed. Pink, slimy liquid consisting of blood and saliva dripped out of his mouth, which opened slightly. Dark blood poured out of his nostrils. It flowed down his chin and into the pool of blood pouring out of his chest.

He rolls the body over and closes its eyes, swearing he’ll get revenge for this. Then he fakes trouble with his bag just long enough to ask Noriko if she can walk. She nods.

He gestures at the door to say that he’ll wait for her there, and he sees Shinji smile slightly.

Shuya felt all the more relieved. It was Shinji. If Shinji’s on our side, we can escape, no prob. But… Shinji Mimura may have been more aware of their situation than Shuya was. He might have been saying with that grin, “Well, this may be adios amigos, Shuya.” The thought didn’t occur to Shuya at the time though.

The POV of this book is weird, jumping from completely inside Shuya’s head to these third-person-omniscient asides. This doesn’t seem like particularly good writing, though perhaps it comes off better in the original.

As he walks past Fumiyo’s body he freezes up a second but keeps going rather than remove the knife from her body.

When he stepped out of the classroom, he felt a pang of regret, wishing he had removed it for her.

And that note ends the chapter.

Males
1 Yoshio Akamatsu: “the biggest kid in the class, the timid type, the kind of kid who’d always end up the target of pranks and insults. “
2 Keita Iijima
3 Tatsumichi Oki: jock, handball.
4 Toshinori Oda
5 Shogo Kawada: Looks older than the rest, has facial hair already, transferred in, scarred.
6 Kazuo Kiriyama: Awesome.
7 Yoshitoki Kuninobu: Shuya’s friend since childhood, they grew up in the orphanage together.Killed for threatening Sakamochi.
9 Hiroshi Kuronaga: Part of Kazou’s gang.
10 Ryuhei Sasagawa: Delinquent. Part of Kazou’s gang
11 Hiroki Sugimura: Tall and knows martial arts. Seems tough but is actually shy, likes Chinese poetry. Shuya’s friend.
12 Yutaka Seto: Class clown.
13 Yuichiro Takiguchi
14 Sho Tsukioka: Part of Kazou’s gang
15 Shuya Nanahara: Main character? Minor but utterly harmless teenage rebelliousness.
16 Kazushi Nüda: jock, soccer.
17 Mitsuru Numai: Delinquent. Part of Kazou’s gang
18 Tadakatsu Hatagami: jock, Shuya’s friend when they were younger. ‘Shuya had started playing electric guitar, which was considered an “unpatriotic” activity. Tadakatsu’s mother was uptight about that sort of thing.”
19 Shinji Mimura: Shuya’s current friend. ‘short hair and wore an intricately designed ring on his left ear’, highly athletic, knows a lot of information, particularly about the outside world. Extremely cool under pressure.
20 Kyoichi Motobuchi: Class representative, dad’s a government official.
21 Kazuhiko Yamamoto: Sakura’s boyfriend.
Females
1 Mizuho Inada
2 Yukie Utsumi: class representative, braided hair, Haruka’s volleyball teammate. The first one to speak after their abduction.
3 Megumi Eto
4 Sakura Ogawa: Kazuhiko’s girlfriend.
5 Izumi Kanai: ‘the preppy whose father was a town representative’
6 Yukiko Kitano
7 Yumiko Kusaka
8 Kayoko Kotohiki
9 Yuko Sakaki
10 Hirono Shimizu: Part of Mitsuko’s group.
11 Mitsuko Souma: Delinquent group leader. “Even though Mitsuko had the gorgeous looks of a pop idol, she always wore a strange, listless expression on her face.”
12 Haruka Tanizawa: Yukie’s volleyball teammate, exceptionally tall;
13 Takako Chigusa
14 Mayumi Tendo
15 Noriko Nakagawa: She has a crush on Shuya he’s unaware of and Yoshitoki has a crush on her she may be unaware of. She’s nice and likes literature. Suffering a leg injury.
16 Yuka Nakagawa: Yoshitoki says she’s fat. Class clown.
17 Satomi Noda : “model student who wore wire-rimmed glasses which suited her calm, intelligent face”
18 Fumiyo Fujiyoshi: Killed for whispering to Yukie.“She was the nurse’s aide. She was quiet but very caring.”
19 Chisato Matsui: always quiet and withdrawn
20 Kaori Minami
21 Yoshimi Yahagi: Part of Mitsuko’s group.